As part of a major expansion, San Antonio-based eyewear company HVHC Inc. will open its second area manufacturing plant around Sept. 1 with as many as 150 workers at 655 Richland Hills Drive on the far West Side.

Plans call for the factory to shift into full production around Jan. 1.

But the employment number at the start of 2014 will depend on the volume of eyewear orders as the company adds stores nationally under the Visionworks of America Inc. name, HVHC President and CEO David Holmberg said Tuesday.The company is looking to add 600 manufacturing jobs and 150 headquarters jobs here, the San Antonio Express-News confirmed last week. These are the latest details.

Between now and Jan. 1, the company will be recruiting, hiring and training manufacturing workers, and installing equipment at the 120,000-square-foot, free-standing building. Employment growth after Jan. 1 will depend on the growth in orders, Holmberg said.

City Council on Thursday is scheduled to vote on the city's incentive package that would support employment up to 600 full-time workers over the next six years.

Holmberg said the company will invest $25 million at the plant and has signed a lease at the manufacturing plant site for 10 years, with options for another 10 years. “This reflects the fact we're making a long-term commitment to the community,” Holmberg said.

City Council members are being told the company operates nearly 600 stores in 36 states and plans to grow to about 1,000 stores in five years.

HVHC operates an eyewear production plant in Schertz, employing about 600 workers. The company also has plants in Philadelphia and two New York sites.

The city is offering HVHC up to $1.14 million in an incentive grant payable over three to six years if 600 jobs are created at the Richland Hills Drive site within six years and sustained for 10 years. The grant equals about $1,900 per job. The incentive calls for wages to be at least $11.08 an hour, the city's current livable-wage floor, with at least 50 of the jobs paying at least $43,186 a year, which qualifies as “high wage.”

The city also offers to nominate the company to become a state Enterprise Zone Project, which would entitle HVHC to refunds of state sales and use taxes for job retention and creation and for capital investments. Twenty-five percent of 500 jobs must go to residents of economically disadvantaged census tracts in San Antonio and Bexar County.

If designated by the state, HVHC could receive state sales and use tax refunds of up to $1.25 million over a five-year period, according to information furnished to City Council members.

HVHC, which has been based in San Antonio since 1988, also said last week that it is expanding its headquarters at the IBC Centre downtown at 175 E. Houston St., the former AT&T Inc. headquarters building.

HVHC headquarters already employs about 350 workers and plans to add 150 on two additional floors at the building, bringing the total number of floors to seven. Headquarters hiring will begin in July, Holmberg said.

“That will be a gradual ramp-up as well,” he said.

For the headquarters expansion, the city is offering a $360,000 grant payable over five years if HVHC's headquarters employment reaches 500 jobs by Dec. 31, 2015, and retains that job level through Sept. 1, 2021. The grant would be on top of $2.92 million in parking subsidies, along with a $1.05 million grant, which HVHC received from the city in 2011 when it moved into the IBC Centre with the initial 350 jobs.

City Council is being informed the headquarters jobs will pay an average of $50,000.